A socialist kill-joy in Venezuela

Hugo, the protofascist sure knows what's "good" for his people.

Venezuela's government left bar-owners reeling by imposing an alcohol ban over Holy Week and Easter weekend, forcing drinkers in the whisky-mad Catholic country to use covert methods in search of a fix.

The ban outlaws drinking alcohol from 5:00 pm to 10:00 am each night from March 31, and all day from the following Thursday to Easter Sunday. It aims to lower the toll of traffic accidents due to drunk-driving over the period.

But it has led the South American country's top beer brewer, Cerverceria Polar, to cancel a series of festive events it had planned for the week on the tourist island of Margarita and other resorts.

In a shop in the neighborhood of La Carlota, near the president's residence in Caracas, drinkers have taken to ordering "a kilo of beans" from their grocer -- code words for a pack of beer.

Traders in the seaside resorts have complained they will lose up to 70 percent of their business during the ban. Other celebrations -- salsa, reggae and rock concerts -- have also been called off at beaches on Venezuela's Caribbean coast.

Hardened bar and restaurant-owners in the coastal capital Caracas were not cowed, however, saying that in parts of the city the police will be unable to enforce the dry-out.

"In the working class areas there is no alcohol ban," said one bar owner in the central district of Chacao. "The police won't go in there because the delinquents are better armed than they are."

Pedro Carreno, the interior and justice minister in the government of firebrand socialist President Hugo Chavez, has championed the ban, insisting: "You don't have to have alcohol to have a good time."

The finance ministry meanwhile has announced new taxes to curb the country's taste for mature Scottish imports. Venezuela is the world's biggest consumer of 18-year-old whisky.